Nine Lives
by fragments.in.the.sky.named.you
Summary: Bipolar. Borderline. Anorexic. Depressed. Bulimic. Histrionic. Schizoaffective. Traumatized. Obsessive-compulsive. Avoidant. Anxious. Addicted. Schizotypal. Antisocial. Attention-deficit. Hyperactive. All these labels don't make the person. (AU!)
1. 1: Sunset Boulevard

**DISCLAIMER: ****_Victorious _****is a terribly ancient Nickelodeon relic that I will never possess.**

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><p>Something Cat always remembered about November 17th was the sunset. The supple canvas of darkening colors painted her face, causing her shadowed smile to brighten even more. The tree, where her pet dog was buried underneath, jutted from the ground like the hand of Hades, reaching for the sleepy Sun. Her thoughts were a chiaroscuro melting pot; walk the dog, don't have a dog, walk my brother, buy him an ice-cream cone, don't eat ice cream, it hurts my tummy, dye my hair again, hide the scissors, hide the scissors, write my memoir—she tapped her fingers against the stretcher she was laying on, thinking about this now.<p>

Her mom was at home right now, either crying like she always does or sleeping like a puppy in the sunlight. Her dad obviously wouldn't know this since he's been busy bragging about the many paintings he'll put on display in the Hollywood Arts Alumni Reunion, hosted by Erwin Sikowitz. Cat always wanted to go to that school, and before being led into this foreign, white portal to an alternate dimension, she was sure her parents would enroll her.

The oxygen mask cupped her mouth, even though she sheepishly tried to push it off her face. The paramedic persisted, and in the religiously loud tableau of it all, Cat admitted that he was really cute. She stroked his arm, tracing her long, lacquered nails over his rough knuckles. He merely smiled, took her hand, and said, "It's gonna be OK, little girl. You'll make it."

In her grinning thoughts, leering at how fast the sirens were but how slowly the world revolved, there was a sharp thought that begged: _Please don't make it._

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><p>The Valentines entered the hospital room in a shivering cluster. Snow kissed the muddy streets, a rarity in Los Angeles. Nonetheless, cars mingled in the streets, talking back to one another with angry, vulgar horns. In this dank, green hospital room, with a limping TV and a sleeping elder laying next to their little girl, Cat still seemed to brighten up everything. Her hair fell on her pallid shoulders in a gorgeous red cascade.<p>

"Hi, Mommy! Hi, Daddy!" Cat leapt from the bed and hugged her parents with broad verve. They faltered in return, trying to bury their dirge underneath her raucous pop songs. When she pulled back, she looked around for another person who liked to smile at the sunset and take 2850 milligrams of Seroquel. "Where's Danny?"

Miss Valentine bowed her head while Mister Valentine spoke morosely, "He's back in Camp Joseph Paige."

"Well, why didn't I see him? I mean, I was running throughout the house all day yesterday, cleaning my room, making smoothies, doing some cardio; but where'd he go? Are we playing hide and seek?"

"Cat, I don't know," Miss Valentine muttered, exasperated. "You know how Danny is. The only bit of gossip I heard was that he tried to hold up a gas station."

"A-_gain?_" Cat asked with mock frustration. She remembered the first time Danny held up a gas station. He was fourteen, his girlfriend had just broken up with him, and he wanted to rob the cashier of 300 dollars so that he could buy her the sapphire necklace she always wanted. It was very embarrassing, explaining to the officer that he accidentally grabbed the toy gun instead of the semi-automatic.

"Yes, a-_gain_." Miss Valentine snapped.

"Jamie," Mister Valentine turned to his wife. She blinked at him, bemused and angry, and his annoyance dissolved. "Jamie, please go back to the lobby. I need to talk to Cat alone."

"Hey, while you're in the lobby, can I please have a Hershey's bar? I'm starving! They pumped my tummy and it hurt a lot, but it's also made me hungry. What kind of candy do they have in there? Hershey's, M&Ms, Reese's, Kit-Kats, 3 Musketeers? I _love _those candies, they taste so sweet, they aren't as good as red velvet cupcakes, but still—wait! How about we have red velvet cupcakes for dinner when I come home! We can bake some for Danny, too!"

Jamie Valentine tried to choke out a response, but only dissolved into indignant sobs. When her husband wrapped an arm around her quaking shoulders, she looked at the redheaded girl, who was bouncing on her folded legs and humming something she heard on _Dora the Explorer_, and intensified. "Marty, I don't know what to do…"

"Neither do I," he said, kissing her cheek. He fished through his jacket pocket for a handkerchief, produced one, and blotted her black tears. "Please, try to calm down. Panicking won't do any good. I'll…talk to her before Dr. Gerald comes in, okay?"

Jamie nodded hastily, and Cat glanced at her one more time. Her mother's hair was a pinned froth of mousy blonde, compensating for her arched, polished face. Jamie Valentine looked at Cat once, matted sluices of mascara ringed around her eyes, and stalked out of the room without a word.

Marty Valentine ran a hand through his hair, sighed, and sat down on the side of the hospital bed. Whenever Cat saw him, she was always struck by how different he looked each time. While her mother rotted away like an ancient gourd, her father seemed to physically regress each and every day. At forty-five, people still mistook him for the twenty-something poet he dreamt of becoming. _Transcendentalism_, Cat giggled internally.

"Hey, Kitty-Cat," Marty said gently, petting her head. "How are you holding up?"

"Really good," Cat chirped. "I didn't feel a thing! Hey, is Mommy OK? She seemed mad at me."

"No, she's not mad…well, not at you, at least. She's just frightened out of her mind, as am I." Marty gauged Cat's romantic gaze out the window and tilted her face towards him. "Cat."

Cat's eyes twinkled with inspiration. An immaculate stack of papers were set on the table beside her. The nurses allowed her to draw and write since she didn't have access to her laptop. Marty could already guess what was in that vast collection, but the drawing on top stuck out to him: a clumsily-drawn double helix.

Cat looked at him, bobbing her shoulders up and down a little. "Mr. Sikowitz used to be interested in science when he was a little kid, and his favorite subject was biology, especially when it came to DNA. I was hoping that when you see him at the reunion, you'd show that to him and ask if that would qualify as "real art", which it is. I also am writing my own album, and I'm gonna do cover songs for TheSlap when I get home. I've been practicing 'Dream a Little Dream of Me'. Wanna hear me sing it?"

"Cat, Cat…please listen to me right now." Marty got a hold of Cat's shoulders and held the jittery girl still. "What happened? What led you to do this?"

"Nothing."

"This isn't nothing. Please tell me."

"I'm just not afraid of death," Cat said. "Like, I don't know what to say. I'm feeling fine."

"Is _this_ fine?" Marty's concern grew into tearful asperity. "If the door wasn't unlocked, you wouldn't have been so lucky! How is _that_ fine?"

"Because I'm ready to die." Cat's cheerful tone has a menacing weight to it. "Now, I know I don't have all my work done, but I can do it in Heaven. I know that God wants me on his left-hand side by his Throne, and Jesus will be there, he'll say hi to me, and I'll pick up from there."

Marty laid his wet face on her shoulder. Cat looked around the room, feeling a sense of symbolic harmony with objects like the muted _Seinfeld _episode playing and the snoring old lady and the stack of songs, drawings, poems, and memoir drafts she spent hours after her gastric lavage working on. She flipped a tuft of red hair behind her back, snuggling against her father's forehead and kissing his bald spot.

When he had finally cried himself dry, Marty lifted his head off of her and touched her arm gently. Anger was there, as inappropriate as it may sound, not because of Cat's hopeful smile in the face of lingering will-o'-wisps, but how he almost lost that smile. He put a hand on her cheek and drilled through his cluttered head to try and explain himself.

"Do you remember Dr. Gerald, your old therapist when you were in 2nd Grade?"

"Uh-huh!" Cat nodded, sprayed curls bouncing off of her cheeks. "Does he still have that Marshmallow Mania poster in his office? I still think it's funny how such a skinny man eats marshmallows like crazy."

Marty chuckled. "I'm not sure…but what I _do _know is he will be coming by to check up on you. He's going to ask you a lot of questions about what happened, how are you feeling, what are your moods, what do you do in your free-time—"

"Do I like to dip my french fries in ketchup or smoothies?"

"Perhaps. I wouldn't be surprised." Marty smirked, looking down at the floor with watery eyes. "Now, I want you to answer every question honestly, but don't be surprised if something happens."

Cat's face folded a little. "What's gonna happen?"

Marty had the words linger on the dry tenuity of his tongue, but when he looked up at his daughter again, all he could do was pull her into a tight hug. She reciprocated, confused by his horrible sobs, but simply happy that she got to hug her father again. She closed her eyes, swimming through the syrupy fugue without even feeling her father disengaging from her arms and laying her down. Sundown tucked her in for a brief rest, but the scrawny fingers poking through the clouds immortalized something too grand for Cat to describe.

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><p><strong>AN: So...I'm back.**

**I'm really, really sorry for my absence lately. I know a lot of people have been wanting me to update my stories more (and I lost my temper over it one time), but things have been insane lately. I've recently been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, and I plan on seeing a therapist about it in order to see if things are legit.**

**This story, in a way, is reflecting some of the experiences I had while being in the mental hospital in March of this year. Now, this isn't a semi-autobiography at all; it's still this AU-fic about the characters only. However, it was greatly inspired by some of the experiences I've had there.**

**Thank you for reading, and feel free to leave a review.**

**-Peace from the Gun-Troper**


	2. 2: The Doctor's Clipboard

**DISCLAIMER: I do not legally own ****_Victorious_****...there, I said it. Happy now?**

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><p>Overgrown lab coat and large, fatherly glasses he wore to psychoanalyze his teddy bear. Undergraduate major in psychology at Antioch University. Bachelor of art at Mount St. Mary's College. Graduate degrees and doctorates earned through online classes that always left time for <em>Becker <em>and _Family Feud_. Spending long nights waist-deep in the art of evaluation while his mother rested in a casket after a date with an oncoming subway. Dr. Christopher Gerald believed himself to have seen and done it all, but that suddenly changed when he saw a little girl with brown, frizzled hair in his office, slumped in a tiny chair with slash marks in her ten-year-old arms. And now, still dwelling in the repetitive inbox of messages on his cellphone: _Dr. Gerald? This is Jamie Valentine. You have to help us—Cat? Oh god, Cat! Gerald, she's—Marty, you're hurting her, stop pulling her hair!—please see us! ASAP!_

Dr. Gerald marched through the entrance, the trek accentuated by sneering fluorescents and floating voices that are paging Dr. Quincell to OR Room 3. He saw the Valentines huddled together like lovesick teens in a snowstorm, and before he could even think about Cat post-ER, he hurried over to them, mumbled something that caught their attention, and let the Valentines fall headlong into his arms. Marty wept quietly whereas Jamie was enveloped in quick, sobbing abandon. Dr. Gerald held them close, rubbing their backs to soothe their tenseness.

"I am so sorry to hear about this," Dr. Gerald admitted. "I thought she was doing so well."

"Well, we did, too!" Jamie sputtered, muffled by his shoulder. She pulled back, resentfully looking at herself in the contact mirror and powdering her soggy eyes. Fragments dangled over her lips, but she choked them back as her husband caressed the nuque of her neck.

Marty, not wanting his wife to continue on: "She's been like this for three months."

"_Three months?_" The tone in Dr. Gerald's voice was sentimental, but just as compassionate. He took out the clipboard he stored in his overcoat, fished out a purple pen from his pocket, and started scribbling this information down. "When did this all start?"

"In August," Jamie whimpered. "The 12th, I believe."

"No changes in medication?"

Marty shook his head.

"How exactly has her behavior changed in these past three months?"

Marty's shoulders plunged. "At first, it wasn't…well, she's always been a bubbly girl, so that's not the problem. It's the sudden _switch_ that's the problem. Her depression in the past was very noticeable, but this just looked like a hypo-balloon to us. She didn't really eat a lot, and she only slept about four hours each night; but we were able to convince her to eat some fruit and take Klonopin at the very least."

"Klonopin…" Dr. Gerald mumbled. "Did she experience any side effects from the Klonopin? Any further lack of appetite or irritability?"

"She rarely suffers from any side effects," Jamie said. "Whenever she does, it's like a runny nose or a cough here and there."

"Has she suffered from any _severe _side effects in the past?"

Marty and Jamie looked at each other, puzzled by the bluntness of it. Jamie's eyebrows perked as her breathing slowed down. "No. Not that we know of."

"Okay, then." Dr. Gerald, compliantly scribbling, kept glancing back at the ominous room. "How is she doing right now?"

"The nurses say that she's in stable condition right now," Marty said.

"As stable as she can be!" Jamie languished, but felt ashamed of the hoarse chuckle that followed. She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I just, I can't do this; I don't know what to—"

"Jamie. _Shh_." Dr. Gerald touched her arm. "We'll do everything we can for her. Right now, just go sit down in the waiting room and relax while I go outside with Marty to discuss important matters regarding your daughter."

In any other situation, Jamie Valentine would've gone into a tirade against anyone who tried to leave her out. Marty even felt goose-chills when he saw a familiar flicker emblazon her dark, coffee-cup eyes. However, she simply patted her messy bun of hair, adjusted her rhinestone hairband, and wordlessly made her way back to her seat.

"Come with me." Dr. Gerald led Marty through the glass doors into the hissing cold. Fifty-seven degrees wind at night didn't welcome either of them, but they shrugged into it like it was an old coat. Dr. Gerald led them to a shaded bench that was near the grinning entrance. A public ashtray leaned against it, and Marty grappled with the Kools box in his jacket pocket. When he fumbled with the lighter and the winking cigarette in his mouth, he made an offertory motion towards Dr. Gerald, smoke jittering through his teeth. Dr. Gerald shook his head, sitting them down on the cold, rusting metal. "I'm not much of a smoker myself. Causes me to cough too much."

Marty stiffened against the rusted metal bench. In a spit of confusion: "I'm sorry if Jamie and I seem kind of caustic tonight. It's just…been really rough for both of us."

"That's always understandable." Dr. Gerald sat next to Marty as opposed to scooting away like a curt businessman. He set the clipboard down, methodically angled the pen away from both of them, and straightened. "The important thing right now is how your daughter is currently doing. How was she when you visited her?"

"Same as she has been since August: happy, energetic, hasty…she even mentioned Danny. She hasn't done that in the longest time."

Dr. Gerald nodded. "How is he doing in the Camp?"

Marty shook his head again. Dr. Gerald resumed pressing the tip of the pen against the thin waft of paper on his clipboard. "Can you elaborate on Cat's behavior in the past three months?"

"Well…" Marty floundered, but Dr. Gerald just bobbed his head and left a trail of obedient scrawls. "Since the 12th, she was more hyperactive than usual. She came home with a bunch of library books—_Girl, Interrupted_, _An Unquiet Mind_, _Prozac Nation_, _Marbles_, _Detour from Normal_—every staple of mental illness memoirs rested in her arms. Why? Because she told us she wanted to write a memoir about her life."

"Has she completed it?"

"She finished it in one night," Marty marveled, "and the entire plot line revolved around the time she stole a tube of red lipstick from her grandmother."

"Did she explain the significance of it?"

Marty shrugged. "She was somehow able to take the major events of _Kristallnacht_, as well as the concept of Buddhism, and tie it all back to that single lipstick tube."

"So, racing thoughts and productivity…can you remember any significant spikes in her mood that led us here?"

Marty continued, as if the question was irrelevant, "Throughout the month of August, she was a big ball of fun. One time, she spent one of her weekly barista paychecks on a swanky dinner for all four of us. Dresses for her and Jamie, tuxes for me and Danny, reservations, extra caviar…it barely left her with much change, but the fact that she was willing to spend that much money on us felt more flattering than concerning."

Scribbling, nodding, contemplating: "Her appetite and sleep patterns were nil, correct?"

"With a lot of convincing, she ate some good produce on the fly, and she was willing enough to take Klonopin in order to sleep for six to seven hours."

"But her general pattern was four hours?"

A dark cloud thundered over Marty's neck, and he hung his head. "In the wake of October, she didn't sleep at _all_. Even when we threatened to force the pills down her throat with cheese whenever she'd tongue them, she could hardly sleep more than two or three hours at that point."

Dr. Gerald's voice peaked again. "How come you haven't reported this to a psychiatrist?"

"He was out of town," Marty said, sheepish guilt creeping at his mouth. "Besides, Cat openly admitted that she didn't trust her psychiatrist, and Jamie agreed."

"Is this the third one?"

When Marty felt the sting of tears bubble up in his eyes, Dr. Gerald passively touched his friend's shoulder. Marty made a leaden dip of the head. "Jamie has a hard time trusting them in general. Besides, it's not like we can just rush to the local pharmacy, sweep Cat off her feet with a bottle of Ativan, and not expect her to notice anything. She's more precocious than you think, and in these moods…"

Dr. Gerald inched closer, speaking in a dark, professional tone. "Is it just the moods, or is it something else?"

Marty paled in the billow of sweet-silver smoke. His nostrils flared, his eyes continued to water, and Dr. Gerald's presence seemed nonexistent compared to the bulk of memory that approached him with ominous, echoing footfalls. Summoning his will, Marty plunged further. "Cat has trust issues…but at the same time, she can't stand to be alone without knowing someone is going to come back. She's been like this since she was a little girl."

"Is this attributed to any periods of depression she was having?"

"No, it _wasn't_ like that," Marty amended. However, a twang in the geography of his mind brought back the image of Fun Size Cat Valentine, drowning in the overstuffed chair, overturning her arms to reveal a myriad of glassy scabs. He shook this away like it was a mosquito in his hair. "That was something entirely different. Depressed or not, she still cuts herself."

"Is there any specific trigger for this kind of behavior?"

"Jamie and I have kept a chart of anything that caused her cutting, and this is what we've come up with: being alone, being angry at someone, being…bored?"

Dr. Gerald creased a little, pressing the pen further. "What bores her?"

"Almost anything," Marty admitted. "Even in her normal bubbly mood, she doesn't see the joy in anything. Until _now_."

"Now's not the time to be sardonic, Marty." Dr. Gerald chided.

"Yes, sir. Sorry."

"Time to take this seriously." Dr. Gerald angled the clipboard against his folded legs, reading Marty's vague face while writing. "So, we've discussed your daughter's appetite, sleep patterns, racing thoughts, impulsivity…has she experienced any grandiose ideation during these three months?"

Marty shivered, but not from the cold. "She once thought that the reason my mother's flight to L.A. was delayed due to security threats was because she was given more time to work on her album without distractions. She also once thought, while she and I were comforting Danny during an epileptic seizure, that he was speaking to her in a different language, saying things like _go to him_ or _I'm flying_."

"Has she self-harmed during this timespan?"

"No, and if she did, she said she really didn't feel anything. She hasn't stopped bragging about her high pain tolerance for the past couple weeks."

"Has she been more talkative than normal as of late?" Dr. Gerald took an uneasy pause and pointed the stub of his pen at the entrance. "When you visited her, was she talkative then?"

Marty smiled, but in spite of the crippling doubt in his wrinkled face, it was veritable enough. "She could hold up a conversation when she's the only one talking. That's what fooled us at first. She's always been so positive and creative, practically borrowing from both branches; but when talk about Mariah Carey and her favorite 90s sitcom escalated to security conspiracies and Danny being her link to God…"

Dr. Gerald, gulping down the schmaltzy need to spare Marty the harsh details, turned to the near-coda on the clipboard and said, closing his eyes, "Normally, manic episodes last from three to six months if left unmedicated."

Marty's eyes widened like frying eggs. "But…we gave her the—we saw her swallow—did she…?"

The urge to collapse was imminent. Dr. Gerald had seen this many times before, whether it be in the form of "Just kill me now!" to "You drove me to be an alcoholic." However, Marty seemed to reach out for both, and being a good friend of his, Dr. Gerald consoled him with a rough, gentle hand on his back. This repressed the pinch of fission in Marty's heart, but the puncture was already made.

"I only have two main appointments tomorrow," Dr. Gerald said, almost relieved. "I will have to do some pushing, which may not go over so well with the secretary, Greta, but I will set up an appointment with Cat around one."

Marty's breath declined, and, with a sluggish roll of his head onto Dr. Gerald's shoulder, replied, "Will you need my insurance information?"

"You needn't worry about that now. I believe we still have the information archived since Cat's last visit. Greta and I will work out the details with you tomorrow."

Jamie Valentine padded through the hospital doors, hugging the swollen mink coat to her breasts. She turned to the two men, unaware of Marty's state. The rings around her eyes were a blend of melted mascara and drooping skin. "Visitation hours are over. Have we set up an appointment?"

"One o'clock tomorrow afternoon," Dr. Gerald said with a drip of pride. Jamie gave him a numb smile and made her way to their shadowed, marital Prius. Before Marty staggered up, Dr. Gerald reached for his arm. "I have one more question, and pardon me if this is too personal: is Cat in the stress ward right now?"

Marty shook his head. "Thank God, no."

"Okay." Dr. Gerald swept his clipboard back into his coat, stood up to meet Marty's eyes, and extended an ineluctably good hand. "God bless you and your daughter, Mr. Valentine."

Marty clasped the hand once, and resigned without shaking. He turned back to his wife and trailed behind her, cradling her back whenever he feared that she would fall. As the couple dwindled into the bloom of nighttime, Dr. Gerald stood on the sore pads of his feet, clicking his purple pen and looking back at the grinning doors.

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><p><strong>AN: So, I'm doing great. Aside from the fact that I had to delete some of my online accounts due to someone stalking and sexually harassing me, my AP Bio teacher has been humiliating me in front of the class for no reason at all, and I lost all willpower and started to cut a little this week...I'm doing really well today.**

**Hopefully, you guys enjoyed this chapter! Tell me what you think, and more is comin' your way! :D**

**-Peace from the gun-troper**


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